title: Role of breast tomosynthesis in diagnosis of breast cancer for Japanese women.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Mammography is the most basic modality in breast cancer imaging. However, the overlap of breast tissue depicted on conventional two-dimensional mammography (2DMMG) may create significant obstacles to detecting abnormalities, especially in dense or heterogeneously dense breasts. In three-dimensional digital breast tomosynthesis (3DBT), tomographic images of the breast are reconstructed from multiple projections acquired at different angles. It has reported that this technology allows the generation of 3D data, therefore overcoming the limitations of conventional 2DMMG for Western women. We assessed the detectability of lesions by conventional 2DMMG and 3DBT in diagnosis of breast cancer for Japanese women.
  
  
  METHODS
  The subjects were 195 breasts of 99 patients (median age of 48 years, range 34~82 years) that had been pathologically diagnosed with breast cancer from December 20, 2010 through March 31, 2011. Both conventional 2DMMG and 3DBT imaging were performed for all patients. Detectability of lesions was assessed based on differences in category class.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the affected breasts, 77 (75.5%) had lesions assigned to the same categories by 2DMMG and 3DBT. For 24 (23.5%) lesions, the category increased in 3DBT indicating improvement in diagnostic performance compared to 2DMMG. 3DBT improved diagnostic sensitivity for patients with mass, focal asymmetric density (FAD), and architectural distortion. However, 3DBT was not statistically superior in diagnosis of the presence or absence of calcification.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this study, 3DBT was superior in diagnosing lesions in form of mass, FAD, and/or architectural distortion. 3DBT is a novel technique that may provide a breakthrough in solving the difficulties of diagnosis caused by parenchyma overlap for Japanese women.
authors.affiliation: Division of Gene Regulation, Institute for Advanced Medical Research, School of Medicine, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Yayoi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Takamoto
authors.forename: Hiroko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Tsunoda
authors.forename: Mari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hayashi
authors.forename: Satoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Honda
authors.forename: Tomomi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Koyama
authors.forename: Sachiko
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ohde
authors.forename: Hiroshi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yagata
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yoshida
authors.forename: Hideko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yamauchi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001940:Breast / Q000473:pathology*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D008327:Mammography; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed